The Applicant has developed a wide range of printers that use pagewidth printheads instead of traditional reciprocating printhead designs. The pagewidth designs increase print speeds as the printhead does not traverse back and forth across the page to deposit a line of an image. The pagewidth printhead simply deposits the ink on the media as it moves past at high speeds. Such printheads have made it possible to perform 1600 dpi resolution printing at speeds in the vicinity of 60 pages per minute; speeds previously not attainable with conventional inkjet printers. The high print speeds require a large ink supply flow rate. Not only are the flow rates higher but distributing the ink along the entire length of a pagewidth printhead is more complex than feeding ink to a relatively small reciprocating printhead. To address the many issues associated with supplying ink to a pagewidth printhead, the Applicant has developed an active fluidic system which gives the user control of the ink flow through the printhead. The active fluidic system is described in detail in the applicant scope pending application U.S. Ser. No. 11/872718, the contents of which is incorporated herein by cross-reference. The active fluidic system connects the pagewidth printhead to an ink supply reservoir via a pump or pressure pulse generator. The pagewidth printhead is also connected to a waste ink outlet or sump. While the active fluidic system can correct problems such as nozzle deprime, air bubbles, nozzle face floods and de-cap clogging, it will not fix “dead” nozzles that simply bum out or otherwise fail over the life of the printhead.
In light of this, many of the Applicant's printers provide the printhead has a user removable and replaceable cartridge. Providing the pagewidth printhead as a user removable cartridge allows the user to periodically replace the printhead and hence maintain the print quality without replacing the entire printer. This recognizes that individual ink ejection nozzles may fail over time and eventually there are enough dead nozzles to cause artifacts in the printed image. However, market expectations dictate that any cartridges must be simple, intuitive and quick to remove and replace. This presents substantial difficulties for a pagewidth printhead cartridge which needs to be precisely positioned relative to the paper path and fluidically coupled to all the ink tanks.